The firmware I was using was the old one, and this is the first issue - thanks AlMehdi & Giannoug - but it wasn't the only problem.

There was also the infamous which prevented the backup to succeed, even with the right image.

Yep, to make the story short after several aborted flashes I was able to restore my PR1.2 and then my rootfs backup. Life's good again. See also http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...3&postcount=92 for the exact way I could reflash.

It was scary. You can't understand how much you depend on your personal assistant, save when you see it effectively dead. And I'm an addiction doc, after all. Maybe I should write about a new disease, "NIT dependence".